In What Key
for Robert Johnson
we sing songs, according to
the mood we’re in, don’t we
similarly, meter, chords
of our poetry, governed
by the mood we’re in,
aren’t they
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2008
6:43 a.m. 30.01.08
for Robert Johnson
we sing songs, according to
the mood we’re in, don’t we
similarly, meter, chords
of our poetry, governed
by the mood we’re in,
aren’t they
© Obediah Michael Smith, 2008
6:43 a.m. 30.01.08
posted by Obie Quiet at 6:46 AM
3 Comments:
Robest Johnson is a Bahamian poet I was delighted to listen to. Most of his poems had this same feel to it, very free and less complicated than many other poets. I agree with the poem, we do.
Poetry is most definitely governed by the mood we are in and how we feel. Every poem that we write can be looked back on and we can and will remember that moment of pain, joy or depression. But sometimes an individual feels a particular way all the time and the poems or music can become boring.
Your response, Anonymous, addresses what is far more general than what "In What Key" does.
The efforts and persons included in your contemplation might be outside who and what this poem concerns or focuses upon.
The poem is about the songs we remember and hum, which complement the mood we're in.
The poem is dedicated to Robert Johnson, one of The Bahamas' most accomplished poets.
"In What Key" addresses the efforts of actual poets and how the key or metre they choose, or which chooses them, from one poem to another, or in one poem or another, similarly, is governed by or is connected to the mood out of which the poem arose or arises.
I think of Beethoven and the key in which his Ninth is written or his Fifth, his Sixth, his Seventh or his Mass in C.
"In What Key" though is about real art and about real artists. Such persons, being as alive and as sensitive as artists are, would not have the problem of monotony which you describe.
These would not be poets and these would not be poems.
That is unless it is a poet who has pulled the plug or has had the plug pulled - or that plug might have fallen out as a fridge plug might or sometimes does.
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